One of the actively practiced 2500 years old religion is Buddhism. In this 1 hour 15 mins documentary , historian Bettany Hughes travels to seven important places of Buddhism.
1) Mahabodhi Temple, BodhGaya, India : The place where the young Indian prince Gautama Siddhartha obtained enlightenment under Bodhi tree.
2) Boudhanath Stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal: After Buddha's death, during the funeral, it is believed that his bones are not burnt in fire. It is said to be collected accross various Stupa's in defferent countries. The Boudhanath Stupa has such collection and considered to be one of the Buddhists holiest place.
3) Temple of the Tooth, Kandy, Srilanka: In this temple Buddha's tooth is believed to be preserved. In ancient Srilanka, the kings who possessed this tooth, ruled the whole nation and bitter fights happened for it's possession among various kings.
4) Wat Pho Temple, Thailand: A beautiful sleeping golden Buddha's statue is surrounded by thousand's of golden Idols in this temple.
5) Angkor Wat, Cambodia: The world's largest vishnu temple in Cambodia is later converted into Buddhist's temple
6) Giant Buddha, Hongkong, China: Largest Buddha's monument is established behind a scenic nature.
7) Hsi Lai temple, Los Angeles, USA: The migrant Japanese and Chinese built this temple in USA after a long fought legal battle.
One of the actively practiced 2500 years old religion is Buddhism. In this 1 hour 15 mins documentary , historian Bettany Hughes travels to seven important places of Buddhism.
This documentary also tries to explain the 3 jewels of Buddhism
1) Buddha
2) Sanga
3) Dharma
and also provides information about zen meditation and nirvana.
This is a two episode documentary from BBC about dubious role Pakistan is playing in the war against terrorism. It exposes how ISI, the Pakistan's intelligence agency, train's Taliban's, sponsors bombings (including suicide bombers). The Pakistan military officials in this documentary denies all allegations, but in other hand, terrorists talks about the support given by ISI to them.
Part 1: Double cross
This is a documentary about the kingdom of Saudi Arabia from BBC. Saudi Arabia doesn't allows western media, BBC got this special privilege from the king of Hail province. Hail is one of the 13 provinces in Saudi. It shows a bit about King's palace, duties, life style, private resorts, etc. You can also know the law (Sharia) and women rights. King also explains about the changes taking place . Colleagues other than Islamic studies are opened to promote technical, medical and other education.
Length: 1 hour.
Director: Lionel Mill
I read about Sahara desert during my school days. Again, few days back, when I was teaching to my nephew, the statement "Sahara - The largest Desert in the world' in his book, ignited me to search for a Sahara Documentary and to have a visual feeling about it. When I googled, I found one documentary is very informative and guessed worthy to watch. It's name is ....
'Sahara with Michael Palin'.
This documentary is a 4 part series with each 60 mins in length. It is produced for BBC and got telecasted in 2002. This documentary was written and narrated by Michael Palin, a British comedian and travel presenter.
The journey route in this documentary included the following countries and territories: Gibraltar, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.
About Sahara
Sahara meaning desert in Arabic, is the greatest desert in World. It is as large as USA or China in size and spread across entire North Africa. The countries in which Sahara Desert distributed are Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara.
Sahara with Michael Palin part 1: A Line in the sand.
This episode starts from Gibraltar, a British territory near Spain. There is a dispute between Spain and Britain for it's ownership. In my current organization RSA Security, a product release is named as Gibraltar. Now I realize, may be one our Product manager might have traveled to Gibraltar for vacation, just before naming the release.
Then Michael travel to Morocco, in North Africa, crosses Atlas Mountain. He visits Ait Benhaddou, a fortified city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, where Gladiator, Alexander Movie was shot.
Gradually he reaches Mauritania, a African country which I didn't heard before.
Sahara with Michael Palin part 2: Destination Timbuktu
In this episode, Michael travels from Mauritania to Senegal, another African country which I never heard of. Senegal is named after a river, which separates Mauritania and Senegal countries. It was a French colony, hence people talks fluent French than English.
From Senegal, he travels in a train to Mali and visits couple of places, notably Djenne. I mentioned about Djenne in one of my older blog. It has a beautiful mud brick architecture mosque and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and finally reaches Timbuktu. Again Mali was a French colony and still France helping Mali government to fight against Islamist groups. Till date, there is conflict in this region and not an easy destination for travelers.
Sahara with Michael Palin part 3: Absolute Desert
After Michael make it to mysterious Timbuktu, he travels to Niger, he visits an oasis. Then he joins a camel caravan across Tenere Desert, which the French had called "absolute desert". There is nothing here but sand, sand, and more sand. Finding a tree is cause for celebration.
For me only Nigeria was familiar. From this episode, now I got to know about Niger, a separate African country. The journey which Michael makes along with camel in this episode is astonishing. A life threatening journey in very extreme hot conditions. We can witness the real Sahara in this episode.
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Sahara with Michael Palin part 4: Dire Straits
In this episode Palin crosses to Algeria from Niger, a desolate border with nothing but sand. Then he travels to Hassi Messaoud, an oil extraction and refining town; a man-made luxury oasis in the middle of the desert..
From here, he travels to Libya and meets second world war British Soldiers (famously known as Desert rats) there.
He also mentions about Gadaffi and his ambitious water project. I got to know about Gadaffi, in the recent Libyan civil war and still remember how inhumanly he got killed. He mentions Libya has a richest country in Africa, since it is the third largest oil producer and the population is less. Hence the resources are well shared.
He visits Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya.It is was once a Italian colony and can witness Italian contribution in constructions.
He visits Apollonia an ancient Greek port, a ruins of ancient palace can be witnessed here. Then he visits Leptis Magna, a prominent city of the Roman Empire.The ruins of this city is shown in this episode.
From Libya, Palin travels to Tunisia, visits a family who live in caves at El Haddej. Then he moves back to Algeria, the largest country in Africa (10th largest in world) and finally he arrives back to Gibraltar.
Apart from visualizing Sahara in this documentary, I got to know about various tribes, cultures, traditions in this part of the world. And also I never knew these were french colonies and how Europeans shifted African labors to USA and other parts. A great documentary to watch and I enjoyed it.
